The State of Sega

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Sonic blasts past a million.

By Suppai Hitmitsu

Sega has made public its financial report for the financial year ending March 31, 2003, as well as its expectations for the next year. As expected, looking at total profit, the company performed better than the similar period from the year before.

Sales for 2003 were down from 197,223,000,000 yen in 2002 to 191,257,000,000. However, profit rose significantly, from 3,023,000,000 yen to 8,760,000,000 yen.

In the consumer games sector, the company performed below original expectations in all three territories. North America saw 22 titles from the company with 4.21 million sales compared to expectations of 4.23 million sales on 24 titles. Europe saw 1.58 million sales on 22 titles, compared to expectations of 1.92 million units across 24 titles. Japan saw sales of 2.77 million software units across 27 titles, compared to an expected 30 titles and 3.23 million software units. Worldwide, the company managed to release 71 of an expected 78 titles, totalling 8.56 million units of software sold, down from an expected 9.38 million.

The company attributes some of the less-than-expected sales to the delay of such titles as Dororo and Head Hunter 2. Also, the company's American sports titles performed far lower than originally expected.

A few games stand out as big winners, though. Sonic Heroes managed worldwide sales of 1.42 million units (150,000 for Japan, 850,000 for North America and 420,000 for Europe). Other standouts in North America include Sonic Adventure (GCN), Sonic Adventure 2 Battle (GCN) and Virtua Fighter Evolution (PS2). The Japanese side of the company saw strong sales from Derby-Tsuku 3 (PS2/GCN), Initial D (PS2) and Puyo Puyo Fever (PS2/GCN/Dreamcast).

For 2004, Sega expects stronger sales at 204,000,000,000 yen with lower profit at 8,000,000,000 yen. This works out to 3.73 million pieces of software in Japan, 4.46 million in North America and 3.38 million in Europe, totalling 11.57 million pieces of software worldwide.